NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M SLI

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M SLI is a high-end graphics solution for laptops based on two GTX 560M graphics cards in SLI mode. Each card usually renders a single frame in an alternating manner. Therefore, the dual-GPU setup may suffer from micro stuttering in low fps ranges of 30fps. This happens because of different timespans between two frames (e.g. Irregular delays between sequential frames).

The GeForce GTX560M SLI supports the same features as a single GTX 560M card. As such, it supports DirectX 11 and is produced in 40nm at TSMC.

GF116 architecture

The GF116 core is essentially an optimized GF106 core with the same features. The chip offers 192 shaders and a 192 Bit memory bus for GDDR5. More details on the GF106 architecture can be found in the GeForce GTX 460M article.

Performance

In synthetic benchmarks, the performance of the SLI combination is about on a level of a single GeForce GTX 580M. Therefore, all current demanding games (2011) like Crysis 2, Witcher 2, Dirt 3 or even Metro 2033 can be played in 1920x1080 with high to maximum details and Antialiasing.

The GTX560M offers the PureVideo HD technology for video decoding. The included Video Processor 4 (VP4) supports feature set C and therefore the GPU is able to fully decode MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (MPEG-4 ASP - e.g., DivX or Xvid), VC-1/WMV9, and H.264 (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation, and Deblocking). The X500 tester was able to decode the VC-1 encoded Elephants Dream video with about 3-6% CPU load (according to the task manager). The H.264 coded Big Buck Bunny video was played back with 1-3% CPU load (both 1080p videos).

Furthermore, the GPU is able to decode two 1080p streams simultaneously (e.g. for Blu-Ray Picture-in-Picture).

Through CUDA, OpenCL,and DirectCompute 2.1 support, the GeForce GTX 560M can assist in general calculations. For example, the stream processor can encode videos considerably faster than many modern CPUs.

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 560M should be about 75 Watt (TDP including the MXM board and memory), which is about the level of the Mobility Radeon HD 5850 - 5870. Therefore, the SLI setup would consume up to 150W, or approximately twice that of a single GeForce GTX 560M. Without load, the chip is clocked at 50/100 MHz and 200/400 MHz (chip/shader) in 2D and 3D, respectively, to save power. Optimus is currently not supported for SLI combinations.

The similardesktop GeForce GTX 560Ti is based on the GF114 chip and offers more shader cores for significantly higher performance. The GTX 550Ti is also based on the GF116, but features a higher clock speed. Therefore, the general performance level of the GeForce GTX 560M SLI is most similar to the GeForce GTS 450 in SLI mode.